


breathe some life into my bones

by Pomfry



Category: DCU (Comics), Super Sons (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Dimension Travel, Farmer Jon, M/M, Summer Lovin' Fanzine, Superhero Damian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25712647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pomfry/pseuds/Pomfry
Summary: It's peaceful, the world. It's always peaceful here; there's rarely ever any large crime and the town that Jon lives near is so sleepy that there's only a diner or two there. Small town, small farm.Small world.
Relationships: Jonathan Kent & Damian Wayne, Jonathan Kent/Damian Wayne
Comments: 5
Kudos: 82
Collections: Summer Lovin' (A DamiJon/JonDami Zine)





	breathe some life into my bones

**Author's Note:**

> here's my piece for the summer lovin' fanzine!

The sun is rising when Jon starts his truck. It's an old thing, one that used to be his dad's and his grandfather's before that, but it's steady and does it's job as long as Jon pays attention to it. He climbs into it, eyeing the barrels of hay in the back; there should be enough for Kathy's herd there but her cows eat a lot so he can't be sure. He shrugs and puts the truck in reverse, backing out of his driveway without looking at both sides. There's nobody around for miles, and it's too early for anyone else to be awake anyway.

It's peaceful, the world. It's always peaceful here; there's rarely ever any large crime and the town that Jon lives near is so sleepy that there's only a diner or two there. Small town, small farm.

Small world.

Jon knows that more exists outside this little bubble of his. His mom was an investigative journalist, and his dad was some kind of government agent. When they found out Mom was pregnant with him, they quit and started a farm. When he was little, they showed him pictures and told him stories, but Jon has never left this place. He never felt the need to, and his parents certainly didn't want him doing so.

Jon has never been in danger—and he would like to keep it that way.

The rows upon rows of wheat are swaying gently in the summer breeze as he passes by and Jon hums along with the old cassette tape in the radio. It's the same song he plays every morning, and at this point he knows every crackle and stuttering of the tape. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, watching as the fields crawl by. His days are in a routine, a pattern, and he doesn't mind it. It's boring but safe and it's _his._

Jon doesn't have a lot that's his. He wants to keep this much, at least.

The sun is in the sky when he reaches Kathy's farm. She's already waiting for him, blonde hair tied back into a ponytail and mud-covered overalls on. Jon turns the truck off and hops out of it, smiling at her.

"Hey, Kathy," he says cheerfully as he leans against the truck. "How are you?"

"Same old, same old." Kathy shrugs. "You?"

"Nothing's changed," Jon replies. "I got your hay."

"As you always do," Kathy laughs, making her way around the length of the truck. "Thanks, though."

"Not a problem." Jon extends a hand and Kathy slaps six hundred dollars into his palm. She always overpays and at this point he’s given up on making her do otherwise.

Still, this is enough to pay the mortgage this month and buy some groceries, so he slips it into his pocket. A cow wanders up, eyes big and sad, and Jon laughs softly at the plaintive moo it lets out. Kathy huffs when she wanders back around, covered in hay. Jon snorts at the sight of it and she sends him a scathing look that has him shutting up quick.

“Get off my farm,” she mutters sourly. “Grandpa isn’t awake yet but he will be soon and you _know_ how he gets—“

“He’s a fussy old man,” Jon interrupts but retreats regardless. “You know he only bought a farm because he had enough money to last him a hundred lifetimes over.”

She waves a hand at him. “Semantics. Now go. I know you have class soon.”

“So do you.” he retorts, and Kathy smiles at him thinly. 

“Not the kind you do.” She pushes him away. “Leave me alone.”

Jon rolls his eyes hard but leaves. The drive back is as long and quiet as the way there and when he turns off the truck, he goes into his room—his parents room. The smell of Mom’s perfume has long since faded and the clothes in the closet dusty but Jon...Jon can’t bring himself to leave this room alone.

He gives a glance to the picture on Dad’s side table and feels his heart ache. They’re all smiling, all happy and _alive_ and it’s the last time Jon can remember them being so. 

He can’t really remember the way Mom smiled.

His laptop is on the desk, his mom’s collecting dust from a drawer in her own side table, and Jon sits down onto the old swivel chair. He opens the screen and turns it on, watching as the screen lights up. It’s about seven in the morning and it’s the last day of school so there’s not much to do; this is more of a formality, really. But this is part of his routine, part of his life, and routine has been what’s kept his head afloat these last few years. Soon enough his summer routine will begin and life will fall into the monotone that’s plagued him.

He clicks on his first class and goes through the motions for the next couple hours; it’s two in the afternoon when he finally comes up for air. No more classes, assignments to do later, and Jon gets to his feet to start cleaning.

He doesn’t clean often, not more than once every couple days. There’s no point when it’s only him here, when the only dishes in the sink are the ones he uses, when the only mess is the one he makes himself. His dad was—is a messy person and when his mom got caught up in something she got messy too. Jon isn’t like them; by the time he got to the age where he didn’t care about cleanliness he was alone, and he had to clean.

He pauses in wiping down the counters. Would his parents even recognize him now? He’s not the thirteen year old they left behind, the one that groaned about bedtime and chores. He’s not loud or outgoing, not the way he was, and he doesn’t know if they would know him. He’s not the son they knew.

Hell, sometimes he looks in the mirror and isn’t sure who he’s looking at. His parents’ child or a tired teenager, it was anyone’s guess at this point.

Jon is just—he’s so tired of being alone, of living in this farmhouse, of waking up in an empty and quiet place.

He starts on dinner, leaving the counters unfinished. He'll get to them later, even if the dusty and perpetually dirty back of the counters disagree.

He ends up abandoning dinner halfway through. He isn’t hungry and he wants to sit down on the couch anyway. He wraps a blanket around his shoulders and sits back, feeling like there’s a buzzing in his ears. It’s never gone away.

The sun sets. He doesn’t notice until his alarm goes off and he wakes up with the sun rising behind the tv.

It’s another day. Another boring, lonely day.

Jon gets to his feet, ignoring the way his head spins. Time for a shower and for the day to begin again.

* * *

Jon finds him by the road. A body dressed in blaring red and yellow and green, a black cape draped over his shoulder and stones in his hair. Jon stops his truck; as far as he knew, nobody other than Kathy lived around here. And those clothes—they're too weird, too vibrant, not made of worn cotton and perpetually covered in pollen. He could be someone passing through, Jon thinks as he gets out of his truck. Someone rich who's on a road trip through the US without taking any interstate roads.

But then, why is he alone? Why is he laying on the side of the road by the corn fields, unconscious? It doesn't add up.

Jon kneels next to him, gently pushing him over. A symbol shines up at him, bright and gold and in the shape of a stylized R. It's nothing like what Jon has ever seen before.

He pats down his belt for a phone and finds a circle thing. When he presses down onto the screen, it lights up and contacts come up immediately. There's Red Robin and Red Hood and Spoiler. Oracle and Batgirl and Batwoman. Nightwing and Batman and Superboy are at the top, the most used, the most important, but Jon can only stare at the screen. All of those sound ridiculous, like the superheroes he used to read in the comics his dad bought him, and he doesn't know what to think.

He's wearing a green domino mask. Maybe he's a cosplayer? But there isn't any kind of convention around...

Well, he can't let anyone know he's found this guy without seeing his face, so Jon slides a finger under the edges and lifts it up. A domino mask doesn't do much to protect identities but the eyes? Oh, the eyes are the most identifiable part of a face.

He takes a picture with his phone, slips the circle phone into his pocket, and lifts the guy up. He can't exactly just leave him here, and Jon's place is the only one around for miles. Besides, he doesn't look too beat up. A couple of bruises but Jon knows how to care for those.

He sets him into the passenger seat, looks at the domino mask between his fingers, and flicks it out of the window, onto the dirt. It doesn't matter.

The truck wheezes to life when he takes it out of park, but this thing has lived through two generations of Kents and Jon knows it won't give up on him now. He presses on the gas and goes home, a stranger passed out in his passenger seat. This is quite possibly the most exciting that's happened in three years and yet all Jon can think of is getting home.

Heh, he really is different from his parents.

The cosplayer doesn’t stir once, not even when Jon unbuckles him and lifts him out, stumbling under his weight. The guy’s surprisingly heavy considering how thin he is, and Jon grunts, sliding an arm under his legs and hefting him up until Jon’s carrying him in a bridal carry. It’s like a shock to his system when a soft, huffy breath hits his neck, and Jon’s fingers twitch. While his parents weren’t necessarily physically affectionate, they never turned him down when he wanted to be touched, and going cold turkey was hard.

Having someone so close— it makes his knees weak.

Still, that’s not what he’s here for. He’s here to let him sleep off whatever happened and then bring him to whoever he came with. Nothing more, nothing less.

He tries not to wonder why it feels like something is tearing inside his chest at the thought of his house being empty again.

Jon shakes his head and steps into the living room after a brief struggle of trying to figure out just _how_ he can do that with a person in his arms. He already feels drained just thinking about today and it’s not even ten in the morning yet.

Without bothering to take his shoes off, Jon sets the cosplayer on the couch and looks around. With his mother’s knickknacks scattered all about the room and a couple random objects he hasn’t bothered to pick up, his house looks...dirty. It’s not necessarily an impression Jon wants to make.

He could clean it. He _should_ clean it, especially because it’s been months since he actually put effort into doing anything beyond the cursory cleaning. But just thinking about that makes Jon feel exhausted, and he needs to finish harvesting the fields. He's had to cut down on the acres he’s planted recently, but he still needs to do it.

He glances out the window then at the person laying on his couch. He sighs, decides that the harvesting can wait another day, and goes upstairs to curl up on his bed. He’s too tired to deal with it right now, and if he can get another hour of sleep—good for him.

Jon falls face first onto his bed, shivering as he kicks off his shoes and huddles under his comforter. He’s always cold. He’s given up wondering why.

He rolls over so he’s facing the wall, and he’s asleep in seconds.

* * *

A hand slaps his cheek. “Kent!” 

Jon wrinkles his nose, batting away the offender the best he can with his eyes closed. It stops, thankfully, and he rubs his cheek against his pillow, content. A huff and then there’s a weight clambering on top of him and Jon sits up, tense and confused. The cosplayer is sitting on his legs, indignant, and Jon eyes him warily.

“Kent,” the cosplayer says, sounding firm and unyielding, and Jon bristles at the tone.

“Yes,” he snaps harshly. “What do you want?” After a second of mutual staring, Jon blinks. “Wait, how do you know my name?”

Green eyes narrow and his hand inches down to where his belt used to be. When his hands touch nothing, his arm reaches out to grab Jon by the collar. “Who are you?”

“I’m the person who found you on the side of the road, _thanks.”_ Jon slaps the hand away. “And I’m the person who brought you _to my house_ so you don’t get kidnapped so a little bit of happiness would be appreciated, yeah?” He leans forward. “And I still don’t have an answer as to how you know my name when I don’t know yours.”

Face paling, the cosplayer licks his lips. “You...You don’t know who I am?”

“No.” Jon shifts so that he can move more easily. “Should I?”

“Yes.” He looks lost. He looks like the world has come crashing down around his feet, and Jon is intimately familiar with that. He felt like that the day he came home. He looks like everything he held dear is gone and Jon finds himself reaching out without even thinking about it, wrapping his fingers around a thin wrist. The stranger relaxes almost instantly, curling in on himself, on the way Jon grounds him, and Jon doesn’t hesitate. He pulls the stranger close, letting him rest his forehead against his chest, and starts humming, soft and aimless, with only an echo of a melody.

He doesn’t remember the last time he’s done this. Doesn’t remember the last time someone did this for _him,_ really, but it comes as easy as breathing. A person is in distress and Jon reacts.

He rocks, back and forth, until strong arms wrap around him and fingers dig into his back and a sob tears out of the stranger's throat. It sounds like it left blood behind.

He doesn't say anything. He just rocks and thinks of when his mom used to do this for him. Of the last time he saw her.

It hurts more than he expected it to.

But, like all things, the tears dry. Jon lets the stranger shift back. Rubs at his face and stares at his lap, and Jon runs a hand through his hair before summoning a smile.

"Want some food?" he asks quietly, an offer to let the other be alone. "I'm not much of a cook but—I can make some kind of food."

"I—yes."

"I'll be downstairs if you need me," Jon slides off the bed and swiftly leaves the room. The man needs time to think. And Jon—Jon needs time to think, too.

He closes the door behind him and braces himself against a wall. The old wallpaper is rough against his palm and his shoulders curve forward. He feels like he's going to drown.

But he has someone here. He can't just stop moving the way he does sometimes. A person is _relying_ on him, and Jon won't let anyone be—impeded by him. That's not what he deserves, not what Jon wants to give him out of his broken home, so he straightens. Takes a breath.

He has some eggs. Some bread. It's not much, but it'll have to be enough.

Cooking is easy. Soothing. Something that reminds him of better days, when Mom was at the stove and failing to cook, laughing when Dad took over. He learned how not to cook from his mom and how to cook from his dad. He learned how to bake from his mom. His dad burned muffins.

He cracks an egg, whisking it until it's smooth. The pan is already hot so he pours the eggs in and stirs. Scrambled eggs are always a safe bet—who doesn't like scrambled eggs?

He hesitates when he automatically reaches for the cheese. As much as he thinks it's utter blasphemy to not have cheese with scrambled eggs, some people are lactose intolerant, and he would really not like to deal with that. If Mr. Cosplay wants cheese then he can put it into the microwave, he thinks with a rare flash of irritation.

He puts a piece of bread into the toaster, pouring himself a cup of coffee that's long since gone cold. When the ding rings out he sets the mug down, the bitter taste still lingering on his tongue, and goes upstairs. Mr. Cosplay is more composed now, fiddling with the mask in his hands. Jon doesn't smile at the sight of it but knocks on the doorframe and says, "Food is ready."

Mr. Cosplay jerks in surprise, glancing over at him. Jon sighs. "Look, I can't exactly call you Mr. Cosplay the entire time you're here so why not tell me your name?"

"...Robin. You can call me Robin."

"Robin, then." Jon inclines his head. "I have scrambled eggs and toast. We can talk over breakfast. Well, you can talk as you eat. I already ate."

He hasn't, but Robin doesn't need to know that.

Robin gives him a look but slips out of bed anyway, the plastic armor clinking as he does so. Jon hums, uncrossing his arms and making his way down the stairs. The eggs are still steaming on a plate and the toast is golden brown, just the way Jon likes them. Robin sits at the table, appearing out of place in the simple country home. 

Jon clasps his hands together, putting them on the table. Robin picks at the eggs, not meeting his eyes. A frown tugs at his lips and Jon sighs, leaning back in his chair. “Listen, you don’t have to tell me a lot. Just—tell me how you got here. Why are you dressed like that? I mean, you look like you came from a convention for God’s sake.”

Robin hums. “I don’t know. I was with Ba—Father and Grayson when a new enemy jumped in front of us. I shoved Grayson out of the way and I don’t remember much beyond that.” He casts a glance at his cape. “And this is just my uniform.”

“You expect me to believe that?” Jon asks flatly. “There’s no such thing as superheroes or vigilantes. There’s the police, and the military, and hackers. Everything else stays in comic books.”

Robin gives him a smile that’s more of a snarl. “I’m afraid that’s how things are where I’m from. I’m from Gotham.”

“And my dad is from Metropolis.” Jon rolls his eyes. “Listen, superpowers and—and villains and enemies are fake. I mean—ow! What the hell is wrong with you?”

Robin pulls his arm back, eyeing the blood dripping down Jon’s arm. A metal disk painted yellow has red edging its razor sharp curves, and Jon curses as he shoves himself to his feet. The cut isn’t that deep, all things considered, but it’s big enough that he’ll need a band-aid, at least. Still, what was that about?

“That,” Robin says, reaching out and tugging Jon back into his chair as he pulls out a bandage and some kind of liquid from his belt, “was a normal batarang. If you were my Jonathan Kent, then it should’ve broken.” Jon hisses as he dabs the cleaner on the cut, the actions methodical and practiced. “My Kryptonite is in my utility belt, in a lead lined pocket. That is the only thing that should have harmed you.”

He tightens the bandage and gives Jon a severe look. “I am not of your world. I don’t know how long I am going to remain here, but I don’t exist in any legal system. I am, essentially, a ghost, and I must remain here until Grayson and the Justice League come for me.”

Jon really, _really_ wants to call him crazy, but it’s like he’s awake for the first time in years. The world is in technicolor, Robin’s green eyes blazing, burning through him, and his grip is firm but not painful. And Jon—

His mouth opens and he says, “Okay. You can stay here until you can go home.”

He has to wonder if he’ll regret this, and finds he doesn’t care. If this man can keep the gray and monotony away then Jon would let him stay for however long he wants to. Anything to make him feel his heartbeat. Anything— _anything_ to avoid returning to the way he was before.

“Thank you, Kent,” Robin murmurs, and Jon can only give him a small smile in return. No thanks are necessary, not from him. He’s broken the surface of the water, gasping for air, and he won’t let himself get pulled under again.

He’s finally _awake._ There’s no going back from that.


End file.
